


Living In A Den of Thieves, Rummaging For Answers

by QueenTheatrics



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Eggsy tries to justify things, M/M, roxy & eggsy are the best of friends, slight angst, soul searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6592162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenTheatrics/pseuds/QueenTheatrics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy's been preoccupied of late with questions of morality, right and wrong, good and evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living In A Den of Thieves, Rummaging For Answers

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the gratuitous Daredevil referencing in the summary.
> 
> Title is from Us by Regina Spektor

Eggsy always tries to be a good man. 

After he saves the world, he gets a house, and moves his mum and the baby in that same day. His mum cries on the doorstep, and then again in the kitchen, and then in her bedroom, the baby's room, the living room, the bathroom. She hugs him close, just this side of too tight, and whispers in his ear, "Thank you, baby," like she's murmuring a prayer. Eggsy presses his nose into her shoulder and lets out a breath he's been holding in for years. 

He knows Roxy thinks he's a good man. She bloody shouts it from the rooftops every chance she gets, although those chances usually come after a drink or seven. She shouts _I love Eggsy Unwin_ at the top of her voice, and that kind of fast and loose affection comes to her like its nothing, natural as breathing, and Eggsy nearly chokes on it because he's always been the one to love fiercely, but never without consequence. But Roxy's love comes without an asterisk; there are no terms and conditions, it just _is_ , and once Eggsy can wrap his head around that, yeah, things are pretty damn good. He brings Roxy round for tea every other day, and his mum says things like "She's a keeper," when Roxy's taking the plates to the dishwasher. Eggsy has to explain to her that Roxy's his mate, _just_ his mate, though he hates using the word _just_ as if their relationship is somehow lesser because it isn't romantic. Next time he's in Spain, he buys her a woven bracelet with her initials on it from a street market, and it makes him smile every time he sees the bright colours peeking out from under the cuff of her bespoke suit jacket. 

Eggsy's _sure_ he's a good man because when Harry Fucking Hart comes waltzing back into his life with nothing but an eyepatch to show for his absence, Eggsy doesn't punch him in the throat. Not even _once_. He does the gentlemanly thing and welcomes Harry back, his voice deep melted chocolate, smooth and silky, all polite, drawn out vowels and crisp consonants. And when Harry has accepted his words with a controlled incline of the head, Eggsy goes down to the gym and beats the shit out of a punching bag. And if he happens to picture, on the worn rust coloured leather, a stupid stoic face with a stupid shiny eyepatch, well, that's his business. 

He travels all over the world on missions, on planes and trains, cars and boats, and even, bizarrely, a submarine. For someone who, up until a few months ago, had barely left the East End of London, he gets a worldly education pretty fast. Words like _no_ and _yes_ are pretty easy to pick up, no matter which language you're speaking, as well as _shut the hell up_ and _you little dick_ , although he feels like those last two might be more specific to him. He saves lives on every corner of the globe and his work goes mostly thankless - most of the scandals they avert, not at all surprisingly, involve middle aged white men, who aren't inclined to show their gratitude to the person who just saved their bloody lives. But Eggsy doesn't grumble, because he has it on good authority that gentlemen don't, and gentlemen certainly don't seek credit for their work. Still, he has to admit that it's nice to save a rural village in a far off country from an over eager drug lord and have the leader of the village come to him with open arms and say, _thank you for coming, you're a good man_. 

So he has to conclude, despite the things he does in his line of work, that he's a good man. The fighting and killing, it's all a means to an end, and the end is almost always lives spared, and disasters averted, and the world saved once again. But still, Eggsy doesn't like hurting people - not even Dean. He does it because he has to, but he takes no pleasure in it. The crunching of bones makes his stomach turn, and the sight of blood spraying a Jackson Pollock on the wall is more sickening than satisfying, because real life isn't like the movies. People don't go down after one punch, and a gunshot to the shoulder bleeds a _lot_. Breaking someone's arm in three places and watching them vomit from the pain just makes him feel hollow, and it's not a very effective interrogation technique anyway. So Eggsy finds other methods, ways to break men from the inside out, using words and threats and carefully cold smiles, so the blood stays inside their bodies while the truth comes pouring out. 

And even when he kills someone, when he absolutely has to, he always tries to do it _quickly, quickly, quickly_.

In his private moments, Eggsy thinks he might not be a very good man. 

Eggsy has doubts about himself. He has doubts about a lot of things, sure—about his job and his friends and if he really does look good in yellow or if Roxy’s just humouring him—but mostly about himself, and where he stands, morally. Eggsy has doubts because, not only is he infatuated with a man twice his age, said man also was directly involved in getting his father killed. Roxy knows, because of course she does, and she only mildly disapproves. And yeah, it’s not like it’s all consuming, or even that distracting, because Eggsy has other friends and other pastimes and a mum and a sister and a house to look after, so the time he spends pining over Harry Hart is only a fraction of what it could be. He mostly puts it to the back of his mind, because it’s yet another thing he has to keep from his mum (apart from what he does for a living and why his friends are all named after blokes from the legend of King Arthur and where, exactly, he was during the V-Day massacre), but she’s _‘still not sure about that Harry bloke, babe’_ so Eggsy plays this one close to his chest and tries not to let the guilt eat him from the inside out.

Eggsy’s sure he's not a good man because he asks questions he doesn't want to know the answer to, and he's been in court enough times to know that this is a sure fire way to be disappointed.  
"Why don't you talk about my dad?" He says to Harry one day, as he wanders about the man's office touching things he shouldn't. He doesn't really care about the ornaments - he just likes seeing Harry's jaw clench. Maybe he's still a bit mad about the whole fake death thing.  
"You really want me to tell you about your father?" Harry says, sceptically. "It will only destroy the illusion, and I'd rather not be responsible for that."  
"You took 'im from me. Tell me what I'm missin' out on. You owe me that much." It's a low blow, Eggsy knows, but it's been seventeen years, and he misses his dad something fierce. The opportunity to see Harry's ears go red is a welcome bonus.  
"Very well." Harry says, leaning back in his chair. "Lee Unwin was a phenomenal man and a fantastic friend. He was loyal and hard-working and selfless. He was a lot like you." Eggsy smiles at that, and Harry steeples his fingers on his chest, examining the young man's face. There's a twitch there, in the corner of his mouth, a wistfulness for something long-lost and irretrievable. Harry takes a deep breath, and Eggsy looks up.  
"He was also loud, brash, abrasive, rude. He had awful table manners and didn't care for others' opinions. He left behind a wife and child to join a top-secret spy organisation without a thought for the dangers. He spent his wage on tie pins and toy trains instead of saving it because he didn't expect to die at age 30. He would have borne the title of Lancelot well. I don't know how he would have borne the titles of 'husband' and 'father'." A long, pregnant pause, and then Harry can't help but add, "He was also a terrible cook."  
"But was he a good man?" Eggsy asks, and there's something desperate in that, something undefinable that he can't begin to unravel.  
"He was a great man, certainly," Harry says, not meeting his eye. "Whether he was a good one, I couldn't say."  
Eggsy feels like he's been slapped in the face, but he can't quite bring himself to think he doesn't deserve it.

Eggsy knows he's not a good man because his victims tell him so, and no good man has any victims to speak of, let alone ones who care enough to spit harsh words in his face. Roxy tries, she really does, tells him they’re _bad men_ who do _bad things_ and _they had it coming, Eggsy, really_ , and Eggsy can’t bring himself to disappoint her, to say that every bad man thinks he's working for the good side, and every evil villain thinks he's saving the world. 

He doesn't have the heart to say that no good man should have nightmares like his. Every night, he comes awake with a yell as the image of hundreds of heads bursting like fireworks plays on repeat in his dreams. There's more: Gazelle, graceful even in death, crumpling to the ground in one fluid motion. Richmond Valentine, dying with a smile on his face. Dean, pulling shards of glass from his forehead with a sick sort of grimace. No matter the justification, he still thinks about the murder. He thinks about the pain. He thinks about _revenge_ and he thinks about _penance_ and he thinks about whether he'd sleep better in a tiny shack in the middle of the desert, far from where he can hurt the people around him. Because Eggsy has tortured and Eggsy has killed and Eggsy has been a person he hoped he'd never have to be in the name of saving the world, and Eggsy doesn't know how to reconcile those facts with the kind of person he wants to be. 

So he does the one thing he can do, which is also, precisely, the one thing he shouldn't. He asks Harry Hart for advice.  
"Harry?" He says, tentatively, as the murmur of the evening dinner crowd ebbs and flows around them like the tide. "Do you think I'm a good man?"  
“So, we’re on to this topic again, are we?” Harry says, real quiet, and pauses for a moment, eyes searching Eggsy's face. He seems to have his answer already perched on the tip of his tongue, but is trying to figure out exactly how to word it.  
"I don't think there's any such thing," he says, eventually, and something in Eggsy's chest comes loose.  
"But..." Eggsy begins, but he finds he has nothing to say. In his left hand, his fork dangles, useless, above his food.  
"There is no measure by which you can ascertain the degree to which someone is good." Harry says, spearing his steak neatly on his fork, and using the knife, which looks remarkably deadly in his large hands, to cut it into identical strips. Eggsy watches, fascinated, as Harry continues. "You cannot quantify the measures of a _good_ man, any more than you can a bad one. By many standards, I would be considered very, very bad indeed."  
Eggsy looks _horrified_ at the prospect, and Harry places a gentle hand over his.  
"The world isn't split into good people and bad, Eggsy. You know that as well as anyone, and in our line of work, we can't afford to think that way."  
Eggsy nods, contemplative, and they continue to eat with a static silence. After a moment, Eggsy looks up, eyes narrowed.  
"That was a real roundabout way of avoidin' my question, bruv," He grins, and Harry raises his eyebrows and takes a sip of wine.  
"Doesn't make my answer any less true." His lips slide into a subtle smile behind his wine glass, and Eggsy lets out a huff of laughter.  
"You coy bastard," he snorts. Harry stares him down. Two tables away, the waiter brings out a large birthday cake and the restaurant bursts into song. A boy, no older than six, claps and dances along, and then blows out the candles like its his life's mission. Eggsy glances over, smiling, and when he turns back, Harry is still looking at him intensely, something young and mischievous in his dark eyes. Eggsy swallows. From there, things progress... _Fast_.

There's a full moon that night, and it shines down, milky and soft, through the gauzy curtains. Eggsy thinks of the last full moon he saw: it was spent in Harry's office, shouting at him for faking his death. The one before that, he took the baby to see some fireworks, and held her high on his shoulders as the colours danced in the dark sky. The one before that, he watched blood ooze from the split skull he'd given a mobster, and saw the moon reflected in the puddle like a mirror. 

So maybe Eggsy isn't a good man, and maybe he never will be. But as he lies in the middle of a soft bed, with the warmth of another not-so-good man curled around him, he can't quite bring himself to care.


End file.
